In Asia, we have a love affair for things chewy, stretchy, glutinous or as the Taiwanese describe it, QQ. Not surprisingly, Su-yin and I take much delight in things mochi so when she shared me some homemade mochi cakes (recipe here), I was hooked. And after patiently waiting for her recipe to be blogged, I decided it was imperative that I try my hand at making these QQ little treats too to satisfy my recurring cravings and the incessant need to gnaw. And because some things just come as BUY 1 GET 1 FREE, this recipe is flexible and allows you free reign to be fairly creative with your choice of ingredients.
It recently came to my attention that there was a Kansho Matsuri in Japan, translation: a Sweet Potato Festival; what goes on there I do not know so enlighten me if you do. Nonetheless, I think we can all agree that the Japanese are cute and meticulous with their food, and how dedicated they are to such a humble ingredient! My pessimistic soulmate Y (now sharing a dirty flat with his younger bro in Tokyo and hating it) will correct me, say I’m being ridiculous and declare all Japanese people mad. I wonder why we get along so well like maple syrup and pancakes. Call it coincidence, fate or whatevs, we are going through a similar sweet potato phase in my house and the little voice in my head was suggesting we go in the direction of baked sweet potatoes. But that on its own, although delicious with honey and coconut milk, is a tad boring and might not hold your attention for long.
I’ve used Japanese sweet potatoes here, purple-skinned and of the yellow flesh which has a lovely sweet, buttery and chestnut-like flavour. I thought this might be better for a mochi-based cake since the regular Western sweet potato (orange-fleshed) tends to be a lot wetter/watery and sometimes less sweet. And you know me, after the colour green (hence the matcha), I’m drawn to purple like a kiwi bird is to shiny things so purple-skinned spuds for the win!
A very basic and popular way of eating sweet potatoes is to steam them after washing, leave to cool a little and then break them in half to share and eat with friends and family. Some other ways it is served is to have it steamed, skinned, soaked in syrup and coconut milk – another type of sweet yam, the tapioca, is served this way in my country and is so delicious and fragrant you almost feel drugged on a couple of mouthfuls; or cooked in sweet soups, savoury soups, desserts, etc. The variations are countless. A favourite bakery of mine also makes these very light and delicate steamed white cakes – it’s like eating a cloud for goodness sake – and it has little bits of steamed sweet potatoes in it. You can say that’s probably what inspired these cakes.
We all know the health properties of matcha already, that it is vit C-packed and so forth so I won’t bother to expound on that. But of course, FYI, when subjected to high heat like when baking or scalded by boiling water, matcha loses all of its amazing properties. Therefore, a word of advice is to use regular cooking grade matcha for baked goods and save the real ceremony-grade stuff for drinking. With regards to sweet potatoes, you’ll be pleased to know that they are pretty resilient babies. They aren’t just vitamin-packed and easy to cook or scrummy in anything. Sweet potatoes are rich in dietary fibre and because they contain loads of anthocyanoside, is good for bringing down high blood pressure, effects of constipation and is apparently great for the skin (not surprised, its vit C eh!). Plus, they are cheap and great at staving off hunger.
So maybe what I’m trying to say here is that my main ingredients aren’t too naughty? Does that make my mochi cakes less sinful? You decide.
So how did these turn out?
Because the steamed sweet potatoes added a bit more moisture to the cake, I had to bake them a little bit longer. I was half tempted to let these cakes dry out more in the oven, seeing as I’m not used to baking with mochiko (rather than boiling/steaming/grilling) it. These cakes upon pulling apart looked like muffins, with a similar consistency and lovely fluffiness but it is thoroughly deceiving because the cake is stretchy, chewy and almost glistens with its glutinous content. Delicious, moist and very different to the regular cupcake/muffin (might take some getting used to for mochi virgins). That chewy bite, soft but with a little resistance, is also satisfying and slightly more-ish. The taste was pretty good and that surely is the work of evaporated milk but one thing I would never ever use again, and all of it going down the drain right now, is vanilla essence! I hate that stuff and do not know why there are still bottles of that stuff in my house.
The smell of it reeks and I might have used a tad too much for these cakes in my desperation for a teaspoon of vanilla. Mistake.
Vanilla essence fail. Ignore that, and these QQ mochi cakes are still rocking it.
Matcha & Sweet Potato Mochi Cakes
(Recipe adapted from Lemonpi, inspired by Suyin from BreadetButter)
Ingredients
225g mochiko (mochi flour)
85g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
about 1 1/2 cup of steamed kansho (Japanese sweet potatoes), cut into small pieces
175g caster sugar
187g evaporated/Carnation milk
2 eggs, at room temperature
3 tsp matcha
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
Wash and gently scrub the sweet potatoes being careful not to scrub off its precious skin. If your potatoes are fairly large and bulbous, you might want to pierce a few holes on it with a fork before steaming. Bring some water to boil in a steamer. Steam potatoes until they are just cooked through and not too mushy. Let cool on a place and set aside for later. When it is cool to handle, cut them up into small cubes or pieces.
Preheat the oven to 175d Celsius. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan or line with muffin papers.
Sift the mochiko, baking powder and matcha together in a bowl.
In another bowl, whisk the sugar and eggs together with an electric mixer on high speed until light and fluffy.
Fold in melted butter, then the evaporated milk and vanilla. Fold in the flour mixture and the sweet potato pieces until just incorporated.
Pour cake mixture into muffin tin, filling it up to 3/4 full. Place in oven to bake for 20-25 mins. I found my muffins a little wet and baked it for another 5 mins. Cool on rack completely then store in an airtight container.
